


Wine for the dead

by Romanumeternal



Series: Random stories from the People's Republic of Rome [3]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 21:14:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16584314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romanumeternal/pseuds/Romanumeternal
Summary: Something a bit different. A slave goes to a tomb, and remembers their owner. Set perhaps fifteen or so years before the 'present'.





	Wine for the dead

It was late evening by the time she arrived; the summer sun had almost faded away to darkness, and a slight night breeze whistled through the trees; the branches of the pines and cypress swaying and murmuring; spreading their needles over the necropolis.

 

Like most such places, it was small and, save for the needles, well maintained, in contrast to the towns's other one, which had been abandoned some years before and was now a place nearly reclaimed by brambles and shrubbery; the sort of place children told ghost stories about and dared each other to enter. Serried rows of rectangular blocks lined the perimeter; whilst in the centre were the larger, more ornate tombs; where the bodies of richer and more well renowned families lay. Ignoring the smaller blocks; with their simple inscriptions and small holes at the top, where grieving relatives might pour wine in order to placate the spirits of their ancestors as they journeyed to the next world, she made her way to one of the largest of these tombs.

She looked around, nervously.

True, she did not believe in the wailing shades of the forgotten dead that were said to haunt such areas, nor of the witches and demons that gathered here. But there were other, more earthly threats here - muggers and rapists and thieves. Perhaps she should have come tomorrow, she thought, and then frowned. No, she had made an oath, and it was one she would keep.

She was short, stocky, her red hair arranged in a tight, ornate interwoven hairstyle. She was dressed in a fine blue tunic, over which was thrown, somewhat awkwardly, a scarlet stola. She was still to get used to walking with it, and as she proceeded she occasionally stopped to rearrange the cumbersome garment threatening to slip from her shoulders. 

The gravel under her feet crunched softly as she walked towards a large block, which tapered slightly towards the flat roof. The side facing her was inscribed with a single word, elegantly carved into the blank stone. 

 

CALLARIUS.

 

She made her way closer, and then came to the next face of the block, which displayed the inscription DEATH CLAIMED THEIR BODIES; THE GODS CLAIMED THEIR SPIRITS; WE CLAIM THEIR MEMORY. Below it was a relief of two crossed keys; interwoven with roses; a skull garlanded with an laurel wreath in the centre. The keys that eternally locked the gates of Hades; the rose that ensured that not one whisper passed between the realms of the living and the dead; the wreathed skull showing that only Pluto was eternally and truly triumphant. 

She bit her lip, miserably, and for a moment wondered whether she should walk around, and see the next face. The last time she had seen it, and seen her name inscribed on the marble, she'd broken down, howling in grief and sorrow and rage. Seeing the letters of her name finely chiselled there had been the ultimate proof that, no, she was never coming back. She would never again greet the woman with a smile, or laugh, or fondly chastise her, or thank her, or flick her on the ear when annoyed, or the thousand and one things she'd done whilst alive. She was gone; into oblivion, or Hades, or Elysium, or wherever the shades of the virtuous dead went. 

She took a breath, and walked around. The marble here was closely inscribed - perhaps half of it written over, with the rest of the space blank, ready for new names. She scanned the stonework. Each member of the family was allocated a small section, surrounded by a carved, ornate border; whilst at the bottom was a small bowl shaped protrusion, into which one could pour wine into the chamber containing the ashes of the deceased; so that the dead might be honoured and remembered. 

She scanned down the perhaps thirty or so names, until hers appeared.

AMELIA ANTONIA JUSTINIA CALLARIUS

 

Below it were the dates of birth and of death, followed by the usual, terse, inscription. 

 

LOVING MOTHER; DUTIFUL WIFE; LOYAL CITIZEN. MAY THE EARTH LIE LIGHTLY UPON HER; MAY HER SUFFERINGS BE ENDED; MAY SHE BE HONOURED IN DEATH AS IN LIFE.

 

Greta gulped, feeling the sadness welling up. This was what her sister - her friend - her domina - was reduced to now. Ever fading memories; and a routine slogan for an obituary. The fact that Amelia would doubtless have wanted it this way - would, in fact, be honoured to be truthfully described as a loving mother, dutiful wife, and loyal citizen - only slightly mollified her misery. If the Gods were just, Greta felt, her inscription would be a thousand,ten thousand, a million words long - and that still wouldn't do her justice.  
Below the standard words were some more, in smaller letters.

 

LOST AT SEA

 

Greta bit her lip, so much so she could taste blood. Amelia had jokingly insisted she go along, but, at the last moment, she'd decided to take her new maid Tullia instead - a sweet little thing, barely into her teens. So it was Amelia and Tullia who died when the missile struck, thirty thousand metres above the Atlantic, whilst Greta lived.

 

She knelt down on the grass, and laid her head against the marble.

 

"Hi" she said, and instantly felt foolish. Amelia was dead, gone, and even if her spirit remained, why would it hear Greta here? She could almost see Amelia gently chiding her. Somehow, the thought of Amelia mocking her superstition gave her strength.

 

"I daresay you think this is silly" said Greta. "If you can hear me that is. But I made a promise to you. And - well, I hear the Atlantic is wet this time of year, so I thought I'd come here instead." She forced a grin, feeling her voice begin to crack.

 

She paused for a moment, not knowing what to say. She looked around, up the marble expanse, and then around the necropolis. Aside from some lights from the town, some miles away, she could, she thought, be the only living thing left on the world. She shuddered slightly - and told herself it was from the cold.

 

"They freed me today" she said, at length. She dug around in her pocket, and found the conical pileus of freedom; symbolising she was no longer a slave, but a free woman. She smiled, sadly. "I'll be honest, it was subdued, but ... well, we tried to make the best of it. Sia and Triy and Farro and Gamsol - well, they were happy, I think. Shows some of us at least have a hope. Sia and Farro dd themselves proud with the cooking, as usual. Your husband - he made a good speech, and even hugged me - chastely, I hasten to add" she said, grinning suddenly; a smile that faded as soon as it appeared. 

"Lincinius - well, he was overjoyed, and your daughter cried buckets until I reminded her I wasn't going. Quintus - well, he was his usual boisterous self, despite his cold. Boy really needs to eat an orange, he hasn't been able to shake off that for about a month now. Tiberius and Marius wrote very nice letters. I guess if you were organising things you'd have waited, until everyone and their dog could come, and we'd recover from the hangover in a week's time. Hades, I sometimes think you were more looking forward to it than I was."

 

She bowed her head, her forehead touching the cold marble, and she felt tears well up in her eyes.

 

"Gods, why did you have to go?" she asked. "You were - you would have loved it. I remember you saying, you couldn't wait to put the cap on me. You always were a terrible domina, you never understood that because we had the same father but different mothers why you owned me. You wanted us to be sisters, and I wanted it, and if only you'd lasted for eight more fucking months -"

 

She paused, and drew in a shuddering breath.

 

"Sorry, domina" she said to the stone. "You always did hate swearing, didn't you? That and peas. You hated peas as well, and embroidery. That was it, I think. Oh, and blood sports but then you always were squeamish, weren't you? I remember when you were a kid, and you asked me to round up all the spiders in your room, but you wouldn't have me kill them. I had a whole funny speech planned out for when you freed me, and now...well, there's no point giving it, is there?" She swallowed, and sighed. "We both know what it would have said. You owned me, sure, but you never wanted to. You never pulled rank, you never hit me or slapped me - well, maybe once or twice. And I loved you, like the sister you truly were. You weren't a domina, although that's what I always called you." She stopped, hanging her head, feeling her voice begin to catch in her throat, aware that at any moment she would be dissolving in floods of tears. " I never got the chance to call you Amelia, and I guess that hurts the most."

 

She stood up, and pulled a bottle out of her bag. Pouring the wine from it into the bowl, she felt tears run down her face, but when she spoke, her voice was steady. The words were arcahic, old, contained nothing in which Greta fervently believed - and yet they were comforting for all that.

 

"To the spirit of Amelia Antonia Justinia Callarius; now riding in glory and joy forever in the fields of Elysium; reunited with her ancestors unto the beginning of time, having brought happiness to her family and honour to her people, saddened only that we are yet to join her. With this wine, sustain yourself; look over us; rejoice at our fortune; comfort us at our misfortune, and may both the living and dead be certain that we shall soon surely meet in that land where there are no sorrows and no power may part us. May all the wrongs I did you be forgiven, as I have forgiven the wrongs you did me; and may I never forget you so long as I live."

 

Her bottom lip wobbled, and then finally, she sunk to her knees, sobbing and crying. She looked up at the blank stone.

 

"I...I'll look after them, domina, I promise. I'll look after Tiberius and Marius and Quintus and Julia, and I'll look after your husband. I'll lead a happy life, so much as I can, because that's what I know you want me to do. If I could trade in my cap for your life, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I can't. So..."

 

She trailed off, unsure what to say next, before she realised she'd said everything she needed to. She raised the bottle, drank a little from it, and felt her body, shivering with grief, still a little. She looked at the tomb, bowed her head, and then walked slowly back from where she'd come, wiping her wet cheeks with the sleeve of her tunic. A gust of wind sent the tree branches murmering and sighing, and for a moment, Greta thought that, perhaps, someone was calling her name.

 

But it was just, after all, the wind.


End file.
